The system dynamics approach involves:
- Defining problems dynamically, in terms of graphs over time.
- Striving for an endogenous, behavioral view of the significant dynamics of a system, a focus inward on the characteristics of a system that themselves generate or exacerbate the perceived problem.
- Thinking of all concepts in the real system as continuous quantities interconnected in loops of information feedback and circular causality.
- Identifying independent stocks or accumulations (levels) in the system and their inflows and outflows (rates).
- Formulating a behavioral model capable of reproducing, by itself, the dynamic problem of concern. The model is usually a computer simulation model expressed in nonlinear equations, but is occasionally left unquantified as a diagram capturing the stock-and-flow/causal feedback structure of the system.
- Deriving understandings and applicable policy insights from the resulting model.
- Implementing changes resulting from model-based understandings and insights.